He reports that the average price for regular unleaded in the St. Louis area has dropped to $3.20 a gallon as of Wednesday morning, down from $3.42 a week ago.

“All this on the heels of optimism surrounding increases in gasoline supply coupled with a drop in demand as the cooler weather blows in,” according to DeHaan.

And the news gets even better.

“I do expect prices will remain in the low three-dollar range for much of the rest of the year,” says DeHaan.

He goes on to say that this price drop is “significant” because it has nothing to do with the Recession, which was the driving force behind a similar rapid decrease at the pumps in the fall of 2008.

Some skeptics might question the timing of this dramatic price drop, coming as it does less than two weeks before the presidential election.

But DeHaan says those theories are out of gas because — according to him — the U.S. oil industry lacks the ability to manipulate fuel prices on a global scale to in an effort to shed a better light on the current occupant of the White House.

“And here’s the catch…if you think about it long and hard why would Big Oil want Obama to win? Obama’s the guy who wants to end oil subsidies,” DeHaan explains. “So that would be a little bit of a conflict of interest if Big Oil wants Obama to win.”

A quick check of the website www.stlouisgasprices.com shows that some area stations, most notably in the Fenton area, are selling regular unleaded for as low as $3.05 per gallon.